Dec. 7, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
It may have been Steelers vs. Packers out on the field last night but Bill O’Reilly tried his best to get President Obama to fumble during their pre-Super Bowl interview on Fox News.
As Susan Milligan points out in US News, the President deftly handled O’Reilly’s line of questioning and observes that Obama’s “behavior indicates he is unwilling to engage in petty political food fights.”
O’Reilly: “Does it disturb you that so many people hate you?”
Obama: “You know, the truth is that the people—and I’m sure previous presidents would say the same thing, whether it was Bush or Clinton or Reagan or anybody—the people who dislike you don’t know you.”
The objective of Milligan’s piece was to point out media irresponsibility. But the O’Reilly/Obama interview is also another example of what John Harris and Jim VandeHei explore today in POLITICO: how the President is “playing the press like a fiddle.”
He is doing it by exploiting some of the most long-standing traits among reporters who cover politics and government — their favoritism for politicians perceived as ideologically centrist and willing to profess devotion to Washington’s oft-honored, rarely practiced civic religion of bipartisanship.
Click here to read the entire article on POLITICO.